{"id":10881,"date":"2009-02-09T15:23:10","date_gmt":"2009-02-09T20:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=10881"},"modified":"2011-06-09T11:44:15","modified_gmt":"2011-06-09T15:44:15","slug":"oregon-navy-vieques-navy-history-as-prologue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/oregon-navy-vieques-navy-history-as-prologue\/","title":{"rendered":"History as Prologue: Vieques vs. U.S. Navy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note:<\/strong> As part of Planet Waves’ series<\/strong><\/a> on the Navy’s proposed use of the NW coast as a\u0412\u00a0target practice range, today’s column provides an historical\u0412\u00a0account\u0412\u00a0of an\u0412\u00a0actual Navy weapons testing site,\u0412\u00a0its environmental impact\u0412\u00a0and citizen efforts to\u0412\u00a0shut it\u0412\u00a0down. — efc<\/em><\/p>\n

Dear Friend and Reader:<\/p>\n

On April 19, 1999, David Sanes Rodrigues, a citizen of Vieques, Puerto Rico was working for the Navy as a security guard at its Atlantic Fleet Weapons Training Facilities (AFWTF) when the Navy dropped two errant Mk-82 bombs 100 yards away from his post, killing him instantly. Sanes Rodrigues’ death sparked a series of protests and demonstrations that drew a global cross-section of celebrities, politicians and religious leaders who brought visibility to the Navy’s weapons-testing activities and ultimately ended its nearly 60-year’s presence on the island.<\/p>\n

From\u0412\u00a01941-42, \u0412\u00a02\/3 of the island (22,000 acres) of Vieques was purchased by the Navy\u0412\u00a0as an extension to\u0412\u00a0Roosevelt Roads Naval Station on the Puerto Rican mainland. Vieques was\u0412\u00a0planned as\u0412\u00a0a safe haven for the British fleet\u0412\u00a0if\u0412\u00a0Great Britain fell to Nazi Germany.\u0412\u00a0 In 1947, with the onset of the Cold War, the US switched from a policy of disarmament to perpetual armed competition, and the Navy announced its desire to use Vieques for training. In\u0412\u00a01948 bombing exercises began, and continued for the next 55 years.<\/p>\n

The eastern half of Vieques was used for bombing practices, the western half for weapons storage. Vieques was bombed an average of 180 days per year. In 1998, the last year before protests interrupted maneuvers, the Navy dropped 23,000 bombs on the island, the majority of which contained explosives.\u0412\u00a0Over the course of US Navy occupancy, nearly 22 million pounds of military and industrial waste, such as oils, solvents, lubricants, lead paint, acid and 55 US gallon\u0412\u00a0 drums, were deposited on the western portion of the island. The extent of leaching is unknown.<\/p>\n

The Navy’s use of Vieques has long been a point of contention between Puerto Rico and the US, causing political unrest over US presence. Aside from effectively ending\u0412\u00a0Vieques’ local agricultural economy, the environmental impact of weapons tested and their effect on public health — specifically the rising rate of cancer among Viequans, added heat to Puerto Rico’s simmering resentment to\u0412\u00a0our naval presence.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It took Sanes-Rodrigues’ death by accidental bombing to bring the unrest from simmer to full boil. Immediately after his death, Puerto Rican citizens began coordinated acts of civil disobedience against naval weapons testing on the island, including encampments on the base’s bombing practice grounds set with the aim of disrupting weapons-testing. These practice-range incursions triggered world-wide attention, drawing participation of\u0412\u00a0notable people in the protests. Many spent time in jail, including environmental attorney Robert Kennedy Jr., the Reverend Al Sharpton, actor Edward James Olmos and Illinois Congressman Luis Gutierrez. Charged with trespassing on US military territory,\u0412\u00a0they received short-term jail sentences ranging from one to six months.\u0412\u00a0The protests were non-violent, calling for “peace in Vieques,” a cry that rose from the island all the way to the Vatican, echoed by Pope John Paul II.\u0412\u00a0 Planet Waves contributor Paloma Todd participated in one of the many protests on the island.<\/p>\n

In response\u0412\u00a0to public outcry and disruption of weapons testing, the US and Puerto Rican governments negotiated a deal for the US Navy to vacate the island. The Navy came to an agreement to\u0412\u00a0formally relinquish its hold on the island\u0412\u00a0as of\u0412\u00a0May 1, 2003, assigning a portion of its former practice grounds to the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the Department of the Interior and the remainder to the government of Vieques.<\/p>\n

Sanes Rodrigues’ death is\u0412\u00a0only part\u0412\u00a0of\u0412\u00a0an even\u0412\u00a0darker legacy left behind by the Navy. According to an article appearing May 10, 2003 in T<\/em>he Orlando Sentinel<\/em>, the island’s residents’ rates of cancer were higher than the rest of Puerto Rico. The Sentinel article<\/a> excerpted below, cites bullets coated with depleted uranium as a possible cause:<\/p>\n

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The 9,100 residents of the offshore island of Vieques, where for six decades the U.S. Navy bombed, stored and burned weapons, are 27 percent more likely to have cancer than other Puerto Ricans, according to a study released Friday by the commonwealth’s Health Department.<\/p>\n

Cancer patients in Vieques, where about 40 new cases are diagnosed each year, also are more likely to die — a trend health officials hope to reverse with more preventive-medicine and early-detection programs, said Puerto Rico Health Secretary Johnny Rull\u0413\u040en as he laid out the statistics.<\/p>\n

Shortly after two wayward bombs killed a civilian security guard near the target range and set off the Vieques controversy in April 1999, the Navy was forced to admit that it improperly used a few hundred bullets coated with depleted uranium. The substance, a carcinogen that remains radioactive for 4.5 billion years, allows bullets to pierce tanks.\u0412\u00a0Many of the bullets were never found.<\/p>\n

Although studies are far from complete, health officials noted that colon cancer in women and lung-cancer rates are higher in Vieques than in Puerto Rico, even though both populations smoke at similar levels.<\/p>\n

“I seldom touch our local fish anymore,” \u0412\u00a0said Vieques activist Myrna V. Pag\u0413\u040en, who had a hysterectomy last year to treat uterine cancer. “Here the waters have been contaminated. No one can deny that.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After the Navy’s exit, the Center for Disease Control’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) released\u0412\u00a0the final assessment on the safety of the fish and shellfish from the island<\/a>, dated July 21, 2003 and\u0412\u00a0in Sept. 15, 2003 the final report on the\u0412\u00a0quality of the air pathway<\/a> for the Vieques Bombing Range Site. Not surprisingly, these assessments found that the fish and shellfish were safe to eat and the air contaminants released from the former Naval property posed no health hazard to residents.<\/p>\n

While the live impact range, the most contaminated zone, was given the highest protected environmental status \u0432\u0402\u201d that of a wilderness preserve<\/em>,\u0412\u00a0\u0412\u00a0the Environmental Protection Agency (\u0432\u0402\u045aEPA\u0432\u0402\u045c) declared the refuge a superfund site. That means much of the lands\u0412\u00a0now termed wildlife refuges prohibit humans\u0412\u00a0on the land,\u0412\u00a0and allows the Navy to avoid cleanup responsibility.<\/p>\n

Yours & truly,<\/p>\n

Fe Bongolan<\/strong>
\nSan Francisco<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note: As part of Planet Waves’ series on the Navy’s proposed use of the NW coast as a\u0412\u00a0target practice range, today’s column provides an historical\u0412\u00a0account\u0412\u00a0of an\u0412\u00a0actual Navy weapons testing site,\u0412\u00a0its environmental impact\u0412\u00a0and citizen efforts to\u0412\u00a0shut it\u0412\u00a0down. — efc Dear Friend and Reader: On April 19, 1999, David Sanes Rodrigues, a citizen of Vieques, Puerto … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1,583,762],"tags":[1788,979,1795,52,977,978,976,35,1010],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10881"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10881\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}